LONG BLOG

I didn't believe them when they said it was basically Skyrim with guns. I certainly believed them when they said it was good. But goddamn, it really is as big as Skyrim but with guns and it's good. I haven't gotten far enough to critique it on it's story, because apparently it's heavy handed in its racism, but the combat alone really gets going once you reach what I assume to be the mid-level skills.

First, it's more than similar to Skyrim in just the size. You're constantly tempted to walk to locations rather than fast-travel due to the sheer number of things that could go wrong (and for fun to spring up) if you take the long way around. I hunted so many animals in the beginning, I ended up maxing out my ammo and arrow carrying capacities before even unlocking the second tier of skills after chapter 4. What can I say? I see all these exotic animals just waiting to be skinned and I have a bow and arrow. Of course I'm gonna get Native American on Rook Island.

Those tigers ain't gonna hunt themselves now will they?

You know those stories of gamers throwing a single rock than suddenly clearing out a whole pirate encampment as a wild tiger mauls everyone to death and causes a fire to break out? Well, I haven't had a successful event of that happen yet. The pirates usually gang up enough on whatever tiger or bear that happens to be nearby and it only takes out 3 or 4 pirates. However, I was on an assassination mission though. Assassinations have a twist in that you have to kill the mark in true Rakyat fashion: with a knife. I snuck around back and had the man in my sights but he also had four buddies on the other side just screwing around. Not exactly the ideal assassination and throwing a rock would've ruined my position.

But something amazing happened. A truck of Rakyat rebels simply pull up in front of the camp and start going all Steven Seagall at the gates. It drew the attention of all four grunts and I knew in that moment that the time for a silent assassination was now. Sure enough, I bagged a silent assassination and the four other grunts still had no idea. Granted, it seemed like they mowed down those Rakyat rebels like ants, but I had a full clip of a silenced SMG and I wound up only needing a clip and half while I had the drop on them.

Sure, combat is a little bit of a slog at first as you're absolutely underpowered. You can only carry two or three spare clips of ammo for each gun at first and if even two pirates gang up on you, you're pretty much screwed or burning through all your medical syringes. You're pretty much guaranteed to use an assault rifle in the beginning because that's the weapon every pirate uses so you can loot their ammo. But once you get past the first major turning point and unlock the second tier of skills to begin earning, you start to really get powerful and like Jason Brody's transformation from a simple shithead bro to a bloodlusting whiteman warrior, so to do you begin your transformation from weak weekend warrior to the epitome of the predator in the jungle.

Here's how a second encampment attack broke down hours later. I quickly snuck around back with the improved speed on my crouch walk to remain undetected in the brush. After tagging everyone with the camera you've had since the beginning to keep track of enemy positions, I got behind one of the two overwatch snipers. I didn't just stab him in the back; I stealth killed him, pulled the pins on his grenades, and kicked him into his unsuspecting buddy beneath. While everyone was fixated on the explosion, I took out the second sniper with my suppressed AR, ducked into a hut to silently sniped the melee junkie who was straggling in the back, then as the last two were left scratching their heads, I stabbed one of them. And again pulled his grenades and kicked him into his buddy.

Oh, and I also disabled their alarms, which was way easier thanks to my faster crouch walk, the Jungle Run. +1500xp on top of the initial 500xp.

The character are, in my opinion, interesting, at least for now. Jason goes from trembling in the jungle and freaking out at the thought of stabbing a man, to calmly blowing up cars full of pirates with a grenade launcher while juxtaposed against his freaking out girlfriend who's forced to drive the getaway car. While everyone else in his bro'd out posse is probably freaking out and saying how this is the worst thing ever, Jason simply says he's gonna fix everything like it's no big deal.

Yes, lots of video game protagonists can just say that but it's important to remember that just 3 hours ago, Jason timidly reeled back as he was forced to push a knife into a man's neck. Now he's saying he's going to kill tons of brown dudes to save his friends like it's no big deal.

And Vaas? What can I say about Vaas that hasn't already been said. The lunatic isn't just bipolar in how he talks to you. He's good cop/bad cop if they had to lay off the second guy. Every word that rolls out of his mouth is like calculated mayhem just waiting to come to fruition.

Just know that these caps didn't come out earlier because I'm losing track of time wandering around the jungle, just looking for things to do. And more often than not, things come out of the jungle and find me by biting my ankles. Fucking komodo dragons outta nowhere!

This month's bloggers wanted prompt is something we stole. You see, by stealing this idea, you have no idea how truly inept I actually am. By pretending to know what I'm doing, I have clearly used my ill-gotten status to meet such big-time celebrities as Darlington Woolie "Pie Stealer" Madden or Sara from [insert pixel indie game studio here].

This month's bloggers wanted was inspired by the internal enjoyment we had at reading TheBlondeBass' promoted blog on faking conversational anime knowledge. And now it seems as good a time as ever to pretend to know what's going on since the new Fate/Grand Order game launched and qtoid is talking about it. I am a big fan of the character design of Artoria in the blue dress, or Artoria in the suit, or Artoria in the red dress. But seriously, we enjoyed the format so much that we want to ask the community for their own ideas at faking it at all sorts of things.

But this prompt is not just for anime, of course. The video game industry is fractured with all sorts of niche interests that only an insane rich person with no job could realistically know everything about. This month's bloggers wanted is about taking a subject you want to offer advice on faking knowledge about in order to help the greater community, for better or for worse. If this doesn't sound serious, don't worry, you're not supposed to take it seriously. You don't have to be an expert in whatever you talk about any more than Bass is an expert in anime.

I seriously don't know if that was a compliment or an insult.

Offer advice on anything you can expand your mind on. Want to help people get into character action games? The more Ss you put into its grading system, the cooler it is! Want to convince people to get into the Neptunia series? Just say "Nep-Nep!" and you're all set to convince people of your technical knowledge! Can you get someone into RTS game by just talking about your APM? Someone's bound to believe some random technical jargon you made up!

To get started, start a blog and title it "Faking it: [your blog title here]." Then you can be as serious or facetious as you want as you provide advice on any number of things: learning how to play fighting games, trying a long-running franchise you've probably neglected, or even explaining a game's timeline. Heck, you can probably seriously try on that last one and we still wouldn't believe you.

Good luck this month. Only true cowards rely on facts. Real heroes pretend to know what they're doing!

More or less a week ago, the Master Gaming List turned one year old. I had a speech prepared, but the blog editor ate it four or five times over the last few days, so I'm kind of winging it now.

Despite all of the threatening and cajoling I initially made to get you all on the list, I never imagined I'd still be adding names a year later (and by "you all", I mostly mean GajKnight). It was kind of a ridiculous undertaking at first, trying to make a semi-permanent, easily-updatable list of everyone's contact info. I'm not even sure what everyone was being hyped over last year that got me to do this.

That said, I'm glad it came together, and this list has lead to many other things for me on Destructoid; whether it was me becoming our laziest, cuddliest Community Manager, or our laziest, cuddliest Reviews-type-person, I have always enjoyed the full love and support of this community.

In thanks, and with the assistance of quite a few others, I've gathered up a number of game keys to give away to you all.

The Contest

I've never run a contest before, so let's keep things simple. Write me a haiku about your favorite game.

Rules

1. The haiku must not include the title of the game.

2. I will accept any other form of structured poetry if you are unable to haiku but can iambic pantameter (you monster).

3. Please state what key you are going for, and a backup if that one is taken (admittedly, it's quantity over variety here)

4. The tentative end date of the contest will be August 13th, and will be bumped at least once during that time.

Thank you to all 282 of you who have made the Master List a successful project over the past year! I will continue updating it into the forseeable future.

Community AnnouncementsWe have a Twitter account! @CblogRecapsHelp us spread the word out on these recaps and in turn, everyone's blogs too! (These tweets appear on Dtoid's official accounts as well)
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